


i have seen what the darkness does (say goodbye to who i was)

by procellous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Branding, Forced to kill, Hurt/No Comfort, Imprisonment, Medical Malpractice, Medical Torture, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Shiro (Voltron)'s Missing Year, Shiro Is Not Okay, Starvation, broganes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8860039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: They layer on the manipulations but oh, isn’t it sweet to just let them tell you who to be? Isn’t it so nice to not have to worry and just trust them and things are nice here and you don’t want to leave because everyone here cares about you (and nobody out there does, nobody out there cares for you like they do, that isn't a lie but it isn't a good thing either)





	

**Author's Note:**

> So. The triggerfic. 
> 
> Some background: in January of 2015, I was forcibly institutionalized and abused while in the ward. (My escape from there is a story for another time.) I have trauma that is…distressingly similar to Shiro's. So to write this, I triggered myself, wrote everything down, and then adapted it. Amazing coping mechanism, that. /sarcasm
> 
> This may be emotionally intense.

You sit in the dark, and you wait. You were thrown in here, arms bruising and shoulders aching, and you know that you will die here. You passed by the miles of cells, heard the screams. You know you will not get out of here.   
  
There’s some comfort in that, perverse comfort but comfort nonetheless. You will never get out, so there’s no use hoping for a rescue. No use tiring yourself trying the restraints, no use hurting yourself further slamming your body against the bars of the cell like a bird trying to escape a cage, battering yourself until you can no longer move, then collapsing, broken but not yet dead on the floor.   
  
Better to figure out what your fate will be first. A slow death of starvation? An execution? You don’t know. You don’t know if you want to know. You know you need to know, so you force yourself upright. Force yourself to breathe through the pain, and you’re pretty sure your shoulder is dislocated.   
  
Shock is a hell of a drug. Your hands are cuffed behind you, and you grit your teeth and brace yourself against the wall. You push back as hard as you can, fighting back the scream, and you hear more than feel the joint popping back into place.   
  
Four walls, a floor and a ceiling. The door has only a small barred window, a good ten feet up. There’s no sign of a door handle, no way to open the door from the inside. Nothing but three identical walls. There isn’t even a difference between a wall and the floor and the ceiling but the way gravity points and you’ve been in space long enough to know that gravity isn’t a guarantee.   
  
The memory surfaces, the first time you were in zero-G, and you smile despite it all. You had been so carefree back then, thinking that it was all some grand adventure—  
  
Someone screams in agony, and you get to your feet as well as you can with your cuffed wrists. You can’t even see out the window, it’s too high up, and you know this was not designed for a human but it still feels like an additional cruelty. All you will see in here is the monotonous walls. You know you don’t want to see what happens outside. You aren’t particularly rational, at the moment.   
  
—  
  
You can’t sleep. The light never stops, never ceases, never dims. It’s so bright you can barely close your eyes against it and you can’t sleep. You haven’t eaten in a while, either. Hunger gnaws at you, forces you to stay awake as much as the light does.   
  
Your movements, what few you make, are sluggish, your thoughts dulled. You can’t feel one of your arms. Your dislocated shoulder throbs.   
  
The cell door opens, and you squint against the light. You’re uncuffed and they drop a tray of food by the door.   
  
The light disappears, and you eat. You eat without caring about manners, you eat without thinking about how awful it tastes and what it was made of.   
  
You’ll hate yourself, later, for your weakness and desperation. For now, you eat.   
  
—  
  
Your hands close around the controls, a distant rumble of a purr in the back of your mind. You grin, despite it all, and you feel a surge of joy—a joy that isn’t yours.  
  
You panic, pulling off your helmet and throwing it across the room, catching a glimpse of white above you. You know, rationally, that it’s your hair, but it’s _not_ it’s _wrong_ and the arm that grips the white tuft isn’t yours and you want to rip it off and scratch the casing and get your arm back and you can barely breathe and you can feel guilt and shame that it isn’t yours but it feels like it is and why _shouldn’t_ you be ashamed, you know you don’t deserve this not when you broke for them, you broke and let them mold you, you broke and let them tell you where to go what to do how to think who to be. You broke and they remade you in their own image and _you let them._   
  
_Shiro! Shiro, can you hear me?_  
  
You can hear whoever is yelling but you don’t know who it is. You can’t let them see you like this, though, you know you need to be strong so you push all the guilt and shame and all of it over into a box and you put the box on a shelf and you get up. They need you to be strong, to be okay, you can’t let them see you weak like this. You can’t afford to be weak like this. Later. You’ll deal with all of your issues later. You get to your feet, you give them a smile, you put your hands on the controls.   
  
There’s no surge of joy, no weightless contentment. Just emptiness, a gaping cavern. A hungry beast that you keep on a leash.  
  
It’s only a matter of time before it snaps.   
  
You don’t want the others to see it. You don’t want them to know what you did, how you broke.    
  
—  
  
 _Relax_ , she tells you, and you comply. You think of fighting back, but—no, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t fight back, she’s just trying to help you. So you relax, and you close your eyes, and she ties an elastic strip of cloth around your arm. There’s a slight pinch, and this isn’t so bad, is it? Isn’t it nice to just relax and let yourself be taken care of?   
  
Things are nice here, aren’t they? So nice. Everyone in here cares about you. You can just relax, let them care about you, let them care for you.  
  
 _Don’t you want to be the best you can be?_ she asks you and you know what she means, you know she means _don’t you want to be what we want you to be_ but you’ve been asked this before and you know the right answer is _yes_.   
  
So you say yes, and there’s no ominous thunder, there’s no cackling devil, just a sharp nod and a smile and you close your eyes.  
  
—  
  
You make the best of it. It’s a fancy way of saying you break, like how _difficult cases_ is for _traumatized teens_ and you remember the classes Keith went to and how he sobbed when you picked him up. You break, and you let them control you. You break, and you let them in your mind. You won’t realize it how much they changed until afterwards. You break, not even under torture, it doesn’t take beatings or thumbscrews to make you break. Just monotony and sleeplessness and hunger pangs and what else is there for you?   
  
You adjust to life there. You adjust to the bright light, you adjust to the fighting, you get used to it until you barely remember what your life was before it all.   
  
—  
  
You sob, you cry, you beg. You plead but no answers come, you pray but no one hears, you scream but no one answers. No one comes for you.   
  
—  
  
The cheering and jeers are audible through the stone walls. You’re all going to die, you and Matt and the dozen others in there with you. This is going to be your fate. Dead, bleeding out on an arena floor.   
  
You remember all those cheesy gladiator movies, with the oiled, muscular men fighting shirtless. The reality is much less palatable. You knew those movies were inaccurate and _why are you thinking this_ , now is not the time. You’re about to die and all you can think about are movies.  
  
Matt is being sent out first, tiny Matt who never hurt a soul. Matt, who is trembling and if you’re all about to die you might as well get it over with quickly.   
  
You take the sword thing from the guard, and you don’t let yourself close your eyes.   
  
—  
  
You’re dead, your body just hasn’t realized it yet. You’re dead, even though your heart is still pumping blood and your lungs are still taking in oxygen. It makes it easier to fight.   
  
It makes it easier, but it shouldn’t. You know, distantly, that it shouldn’t be this easy, that your opponents are just like you, that they had hopes and dreams and don’t deserve to die, but you can’t stop yourself. They were going to die anyway. You just make it happen sooner, and quicker.   
  
They treat you better, giving you better food, but afterwards it’s the same cell, the same walls and the blinding, sleepless light. You’re dead. It’s just a matter of time.   
  
—  
  
 _Don’t worry,_ she says, _this will only take a moment._ Your arm is held out beside you, and she places the brand on your skin. There’s a smell like a barbecue and it takes you a moment to realize that it’s you. You scream into the gag, thrashing, but you’ve been tied down and can’t get away. It really only takes a moment, a searing second and then it’s over. The pain remains, spreading up your arm, unbearable. She pours something on you, a dark yellow liquid, and you writhe in agony.   
  
If you weren’t gagged, you would be screaming and cursing.   
  
They throw you back into the cell. Your arm is completely numb. You know you’re in shock, stumbling drunkenly around. You can’t stop, though, and you realize you’re rambling to the guards that drag you around but you can’t stop, you can only watch in horror as your mouth moves of it’s own accord.   
  
—  
  
Nobody will ever love you like they do. Nobody will ever care for you like they do, that’s why they hurt you. They do it to make you stronger, to make you better. Don’t you just want to relax and let it happen? You’re happy here, aren’t you? Isn’t it nice that you don’t have to feel all those ugly, unpleasant emotions? Aren’t you so happy when you’re in the arena? Isn’t it so wonderful to see weaker beings fall before you?  
  
—  
  
You scratch your name into the wall. It’s rough and inelegant and jagged but it’s your name, your real name. Not _slave_ , not _the Champion_. Shirogane Takashi, the two familiar characters. The name they try to take from you.   
  
You can’t let yourself forget what your name is.   
  
You forget anyway.   
  
—  
  
It’s cold and dark and a fuzzy shape looms over you and you can’t move, you can’t feel anything. You remember—you don’t remember much. How long have you been in here? Maybe you’ve always been here. That doesn’t feel quite right, but you can’t remember how you got there. You think back and try to remember. There was Kerberos, you remember Kerberos, and you remember bits and pieces and flashes since then. The arena, you remember the arena, you remember killing and you remember enjoying it. You remember the brand, remember the pinch by your elbow and you remember _her_ looming over you.   
  
Which is where you are now, isn’t it? _She_ is the dark shape over you, and you’re helpless and still. You try to move.   
  
_He’s waking up._  
  
 _It’s too soon, he needs to stay in there for at least another day—_  
  
What have they done to you? What has _she_ done to you? Your arm, what happened to your arm? Something feels wrong about it, it’s so cold—  
  
 _Look at his levels! We need to get him out of there!_  
  
You’ll only have a few moments to act while they’ll be too surprised to react properly. You tense your muscles, preparing to jump at them. There’s a hiss, and then it’s not so cold. Your eyes haven’t properly adjusted, but that’s okay. You can see the dark shapes, you know where they are.   
  
You lash out at the nearest one, and it jumps back. Another blur blocks, you can feel its arm against your wrist. A smallish one comes near you, you can see it in your periphery, and you kick back at it.  
  
Someone screams in pain. It’s…Matt? The scream is higher than Matt’s, but similar. Not-Matt stumbles, hands to its face and your vision is starting to clear and—  
  
no.   
  
No, no, what have you _done_ , Pidge is on the ground crying and bleeding and it’s all _your_ fault _you hurt her **monster** how could you_ —  
  
—  
  
You float somewhere outside your body, watching from somewhere remote and distant as your body moves. The other being in the pit with you falls to the ground, headless. The guards lift your arms above your head in a gesture of victory. The strain of your shoulders takes a while to register.   
  
It’s like you can’t control your body. Or—you can, but it’s a remote control. It doesn’t hurt. There’s a buzzing noise in your head, like the spaces in between the radio stations, staticy and jumpy.  
  
You feel hollow. Like you’re full of cotton candy, mostly air and and sticky over-sweetness.   
  
—  
  
When you get out, you’re going to take a shower, shave, and get a pizza and a burger and you are going to eat until you can’t move, and then you’re going to sleep for a week, and as soon as you see Keith you’re going to hug him so hard.   
  
Keith—how long has it been since you saw him? He must be so worried. You remember him in his cadet uniform, excited behind his stoic facade, and you wonder how he’s doing.   
  
You wonder if he knows what happened.   
  
—  
  
 _Champion,_ she purrs, and you obey. You obey because you only get food if you do. Because pleasing her gets you treatment for wounds and a cell farther from the lights so you can sleep and blankets.   
  
No, you don’t need to please her for those things—you’re not a prisoner anymore—you escaped—  
  
 _Come to me,_ she says. You don’t even register moving until you’re standing next to her.   
  
—  
  
It becomes normal, much as you wish it wouldn’t. It’s your normal, the guards and the blinding light, it’s your normal, the fighting, the struggle. The only thing that isn’t is the killing.   
  
You don’t, as much as possible. You leave them alive, and tell yourself it’s merciful. That they escape, that they’re rescued, and go back to their families, and that that’s why you don’t see them again.   
  
It becomes harder and harder to believe your own lies.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at stillherestillqueer.tumblr.com


End file.
